


The (Half)way Home

by bmouse



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Blink And You Miss It Slash, Gen, M/M, but wanted something slow and cute with these two, i ship it like fedex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artsy 6' 1'' rabbit roommate curbs dead kid's existential angst, news at 11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The (Half)way Home

Jack surprises everyone by not staying with North, after everything. It's not that he’d feel unwelcome. Even the yeti that had gently but firmly pushed him off a cliff into the waiting arms of the wind when they'd caught him skulking around look at him differently now. When they’d gone to return the Book of Guardians Phil had even brought him hot chocolate, which he downed so as not to offend the big guy and for a few minutes all the colors of the workshop had started to swim around him he'd been so dizzy with the heat. North twinkled knowingly at him the whole time. Seriously, _twinkled._

Maybe the comforting cold was the reason. Comfort had been cold for 300 years. Cold had been what he was used to and now he was upside down whirling into something new like finding a fantastic air current and not knowing where it went was half the fun. The last thing he wanted was to go back to old routines.

So when his self-declared part-time nemesis ( ‘68 - last week ) had offered to let him stay at the Warren he'd said ‘Sure’ and didn't hide his grin at Bunnymund's shocked whiskertwitch and Tooth doing mile-a-minute immelmanns around the room gushing about how nice it was they were getting along so well now.

In the spirit of new beginnings he even resolves to be good. No pranks, for a week at least. Heck, they’d be at this Guardian thing for a good long while and since he was here he could do worse than to try to understand the fuzzy lump a bit better. Me and that-guy-who-will-chase-me-across-three-continents-over-a-well-placed-snowball did not a good working relationship make.

To keep his mind off how easy it would be to freeze a patch of the field flat and use the Stone Egg Warriors as pool balls he even tried out his host’s morning routine. To a point, anyway.

"Pushups..." Jack grunted, breath curling white in the hot air, water droplets falling from the tips of his hair and crystallizing halfway to the ground "are NOT fun. This is way outta my jurisdiction."

"ey don't knock it til you go a full set mate. Does wonders for the creative flow, like." Bunnymund doesn’t even have the decency to sound winded.

On the canyon wall above them are sketches for hundreds of new egg patterns. The rabbit's large paws are rainbow with chalk dust where they press into the mossy ground.

" ‘Sides you could use a bit of beefin, you're skinnier that Tooth!"

"Tooth does fine!" he huffs back.

Bunnymund just puffs up his fuzzy barrel chest and switches to one-handed pushups.

Jack stops and stares. Technically he's got five left but he thinks he better not overdo it. For a second he pictures himself just as buff, straining his sweatshirt seams, too bulky to be carried off by the wind and it makes him laugh his kid-sticking-out-of-a-snowbank laugh, a sound like a dozen icicles falling. Man, its amazing how he's finally found an upside to dying 200 years before the the invention of gym class.

While Bunnymund finishes his hundred he picks up a half-used stick of pastel blue, floats over to a blank spot in the cliff and tries his hand at a couple patterns. The first three end up a bit too geometric - like the heart of a snowflake or cracks in the ice but by the fifth there’s a nice curl and flow to the lines. He gets lost in it to the point where he yelps when 6'1" of magic ninja rabbit sneaks up to peer over his shoulder. The other Guardian eyeballs them for a tense minute but calls them “Not bad for a dag” and Jack thinks Sydney’s due for an unseasonal flurry so he can eavesdrop on the locals and figure out what the heck that means.

At least it sounded OK.

While he's out Jack notices he starts stretching himself more when he goes about the job, sometimes putting dinosaurs and prancing horses in the window frost. Not like there's anything wrong with the classics but his loony artist roommate must be rubbing off on him. Spring diasies sprout up on the sides of bus stations in Minneapolis. Chubby, adorably cranky-looking little rabbits appear in the windows of an elementary school in Vermont and Tooth gives him a fond eyeroll when he runs into her as she's remunerating the MVP of a fourth grade hockey game.

He keeps coming back to the Warren. Tradition dictates he make himself his own cool and mysterious hideout, sometimes he can feel it crystallizing in his mind - a treetop castle over a forever-frozen lake, ice bridges and glittering gazebos and a see through roof that lets the moonlight into every room but he hesitates. There's time for that later, and when he thinks about it he wonders if that's where Pitch went wrong: Hollowing out his lair alone, building a shrine to apartness on top of all his other _issues_. At least by not existing, Jack's home had never been empty.

Maybe he should look up Pitch sometime, see if he's done sulking under some bed. Maybe some hot chocolate and a good roommate could sort him out.

\---

He learns things, as he stays.

The first being that as much as Jack’s least favorite thing is standing with his nose pressed against light-and-people-filled windows or having weeks of work undone by that brat El Nino, the bane of Bun’s existence is artist's block.

Luckily Jack’s full of ideas on that count.

"Pull, Jackie!" Bun hollers from the other side of the field and in retaliation for the nickname he spins up three at once, grinning wide as both boomerangs fly one after the other and the snowball targets explode into glittering dust. They get up to seven until the rabbit starts missing.

Later it’s his turn and he dodges a dozen color bombs thrown in a herding pattern trying to pin him against one of the canyon walls. Oh Bun’s got a good arm but Jack’s faster than any NightMare and he can’t help but cross his arms behind his head and grin smugly as he descends only to find the other Guardian tapping at a streak of pink on the back seat of his pants. Fuming, Jack freezes his whiskers into a classic Regimental Moustache and gives him an ice-lens monocle for good measure but Bunnymund just rolls with it, yelling like a drill-sergeant and making the eggs sort themselves by color and do marching-and-hiding drills up and down the valley for the rest of the day. Jack sulks, then watches, then laughs and makes himself a ice-bugle so he can join in.

He’ll never admit it but he’s impressed.

By the time everything melts Bunnymund is sketching again. It's looking like a great year for paisley-patterned eggs. If you look at the blue and white ones the brushstrokes almost look like frost.

\---

Winter is in full swing everywhere but where he is, mornings are humid and wet with dew so Jack leaves white trails behind him as he does his morning exercise of 100 cartwheels through the juicy green grass. The pushps never did catch on.

There are traces of paisley in the frost from Nantucket to Eerie and he makes it hail in Los Angeles, which he hadn’t managed for thirty years, with the wind blowing him southwest - in the direction of his thoughts and leaving behind him, under palm leaves and caught in cacti needles, a million glittering eggs.


End file.
